A LETTER FROM NSAWAM
It’s a beautiful morning. The kind of morning you only read about in fairy tales. This would be everyone’s choice of a morning, anyone but KWAME. Kwame is currently serving time in the Nsawam Medium Security prison after he was convicted on a charge of manslaughter. I visited him a week after he had been sentenced and can still vividly recall how he looked then. Afraid, perplexed and shattered. He shares the small prison room with almost a hundred other inmates, some of whom have been in the cells for as long ten years without trial.
Many have their dockets missing or the prosecutor handling the case transferred. Ironically, some have had their cases dismissed by judges, even as they stay confined within the tall, grey prison walls, unknown to them. A few are “political prisoners”, not in the complete sense of the word but victims of the post 1992 revolutions and coups. Victims of hastily setup tribunals and judgments first year law students would not even write. The immediate past Commissioner of CHRAJ, the body tasked with administrative justice and protection of human rights, after a tour of the nation’s prisons had threatened to go to court to have such prisoners released if the state prosecutors failed within a set timeline to get them trialed before a court of competent jurisdiction. His retirement from CHRAJ has truncated this “dream” from becoming a reality.
”You are only lucky to find somewhere to sleep, no movement is allowed during sleep” he mentions. You can see only from observing his skin that he is suffering from some form of skin disease. It would likely be heat rashes or could be something more serious than that. The medical officer stationed at the prison can’t treat such “minor” ailments. His orders are to treat the much serious cases, cases that rarely come. Most of the prisoners died or miraculously recover before their turn to see the doctor comes. He has already spent three out of his 25 year term. He recalls his first days at the prison and describes the conditions he met as “inhuman”! Like the over thousand inmates however, he is now used to the conditions – which for the records has only deteriorated.
Ghana’s constitution guarantees even convicts a protection against inhuman treatment or any treatment that detracts or is likely to detract from their dignity and worth as human beings but just about what this means hasn’t really been explained to the level the average Ghanaian, including the prison officers, would understand and appreciate.
“In Ghana you come to the prison and that’s the end” Kwame states almost in tears. He can’t be far from wrong; among the inmates in the prisons are lawyers, doctors, teachers, administrators, and accountants etc, professionals in diverse areas whose professional know-how would waste away with them as they serve their sentence.
It’s a beautiful morning. The kind of morning you only read about in fairy tales. This would be everyone’s choice of a morning, anyone but KWAME. Kwame is currently serving time in the Nsawam Medium Security prison after he was convicted on a charge of manslaughter. I visited him a week after he had been sentenced and can still vividly recall how he looked then. Afraid, perplexed and shattered. He shares the small prison room with almost a hundred other inmates, some of whom have been in the cells for as long ten years without trial.
Many have their dockets missing or the prosecutor handling the case transferred. Ironically, some have had their cases dismissed by judges, even as they stay confined within the tall, grey prison walls, unknown to them. A few are “political prisoners”, not in the complete sense of the word but victims of the post 1992 revolutions and coups. Victims of hastily setup tribunals and judgments first year law students would not even write. The immediate past Commissioner of CHRAJ, the body tasked with administrative justice and protection of human rights, after a tour of the nation’s prisons had threatened to go to court to have such prisoners released if the state prosecutors failed within a set timeline to get them trialed before a court of competent jurisdiction. His retirement from CHRAJ has truncated this “dream” from becoming a reality.
”You are only lucky to find somewhere to sleep, no movement is allowed during sleep” he mentions. You can see only from observing his skin that he is suffering from some form of skin disease. It would likely be heat rashes or could be something more serious than that. The medical officer stationed at the prison can’t treat such “minor” ailments. His orders are to treat the much serious cases, cases that rarely come. Most of the prisoners died or miraculously recover before their turn to see the doctor comes. He has already spent three out of his 25 year term. He recalls his first days at the prison and describes the conditions he met as “inhuman”! Like the over thousand inmates however, he is now used to the conditions – which for the records has only deteriorated.
Ghana’s constitution guarantees even convicts a protection against inhuman treatment or any treatment that detracts or is likely to detract from their dignity and worth as human beings but just about what this means hasn’t really been explained to the level the average Ghanaian, including the prison officers, would understand and appreciate.
“In Ghana you come to the prison and that’s the end” Kwame states almost in tears. He can’t be far from wrong; among the inmates in the prisons are lawyers, doctors, teachers, administrators, and accountants etc, professionals in diverse areas whose professional know-how would waste away with them as they serve their sentence.
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